On iTKO TV
Removing Constraints to Test in the Cloud (3:54)
Cloud Computing
Extend and enhance the benefits of Cloud testing and production environments
IT budget reductions and ubiquitous Internet access have helped promote the use of shared "Cloud" environments for ready-to-provision test labs and production business applications. The emergence of Cloud computing is good news for companies seeking business agility by quickly ramping up new capabilities without significant up-front licensing or infrastructure costs.
However, as cloud computing becomes more intertwined within the enterprise, dependency constraints with other systems can limit the agility of Cloud test environments. In production settings, organizations need to make sure changes in the Cloud do not adversely affect downstream systems and applications. Companies need to continuously validate that Cloud services are meeting their functional and performance requirements through a repeatable and automated "trust but verify" approach, especially when supporting critical business needs.
Common Cloud computing challenges include:
- Inability to provision isolated and independent Cloud test environments due to dependency constraints on external systems
- Continuous validation to ensure Cloud-based services are consistently meeting Service Level Agreements
- Ensuring Cloud services do not introduce invalid data, errors and outages in downstream production systems
- Costly usage fees when testing and developing against third-party Cloud services
- Unavailability of Cloud services for testing, causing additional costs and delays
The Solution
To optimize the value of your Cloud computing initiatives, iTKO's LISA provides application virtualization and automated test and validation capabilities to support Cloud testing and production environments.
- More flexible Cloud test environments by virtualizing systems that are unable to leverage hardware-based virtualization approaches, including mainframes, very large databases, or third-party system not in your direct control.
- Simplify Cloud test data management with LISA's ability to rapidly capture and model data for all relevant system scenarios, eliminating the time and cost to manually set up and maintain appropriate Cloud test data.
- For production environments, test and continuously validate Cloud services including automated functional, load and performance tests that can encompass the larger end-to-end processes and workflows .
- Reduce or eliminate access fees for test and development purposes by virtualizing the behavior and performance of third-party Cloud services, making it available on demand.
- Dramatically improve the productivity of distributed teams testing against Cloud services by creating customizable virtual test environments for each team.
- Work seamlessly with your existing Cloud provisioning solutions, including IBM, VMware, Citrix, VMlogix, Skytap, rPath and more.
By ensuring greater flexibility, quality and performance of Cloud-based initiatives, organizations can optimize the business benefits of Cloud computing without unintended negative consequences. To find out more about Cloud computing solutions that fits your specific needs, please contact iTKO.